This Book Will Bury Me

Lightly is one of the members of Jane’s group. A retired police officer who left the force early after exposing racism in a high-profile case, he is particularly attuned to the politics of race as they intersect with true crime—an aspect of the novel’s exploration of The Ethics of True Crime. He knows that public sympathies tend to lie with attractive, white, female victims and has seen firsthand the way that police departments respond to cases differently depending on the victim’s race and socioeconomic status.

More than the other sleuths, Lightly is also grounded in a traditional set of ethics that leaves little room for tactics that would imperil a law-enforcement investigation. The group disagrees with him at times, and he briefly severs ties with them, but he remains their moral center. Lightly is kind and caring. He adores his wife and, unlike his fellow sleuths, limits his screen time and sets aside dedicated hours to spend with loved ones (he and his wife do not have children but are part of a close extended family). He also becomes a surrogate father figure to Jane, even fashioning an urn for her father’s ashes after he notices that she keeps them next to her at all times.

Goku is one of the members of Jane’s group. He works in a high-level tech position at Amazon but states that his work is not a reflection of his values—just a way to earn a paycheck. His character speaks to the novel’s interrogation of the ethics of true crime in that he is one of the group members most comfortable bending rules. He happily hacks into various systems in order to access confidential information and does not respect any individual’s right to privacy.

Goku initially strikes Jane as the only member of the group who could be labeled a “stereotypical nerd,” in part because he has the habits of a “17-year-old computer geek” and in part because of his pale, disheveled appearance (96). Additionally, Jane knows that he lives in his parents’ basement. However, Goku is more complex than Jane first realizes. He does live with his parents, but he owns the home, which he bought for his parents because he loves them and wanted to provide them with free housing. Meanwhile, his recognition that loneliness made him vulnerable to joining misogynistic groups online shows his capacity for self-reflection and change. Although the group briefly suspects him of conspiring with Citizen, he emerges as a true friend: He and Jane develop a genuine bond, and he is part of the reason why she comes to view the group as her chosen family.

Citizen is one of the group’s members and also a clandestine killer. A regimented Navy man, he is “very disciplined in the way he works out and eats” (97). Jane is drawn to him in part because he is physically attractive but also because her father was in the Navy and she sees that connection as a sign. Citizen is highly intelligent and adept at accessing hidden information. He does not have a traditional sense of ethics and is willing to skirt the law to research cases, as when he impersonates a graduate student to elicit a false confession from Odell Rhodes. Citizen also has an obsession with serial killers, a detail that strikes Jane and the rest of the group as illuminating when he is revealed to be a killer himself. Jane notes early in the narrative that many serial killers share common traits: They were abused in childhood, showed cruelty toward animals early in their lives, and wet the bed as children. Much of this is true of Citizen, who was abused by his father and who killed his neighbor’s dog while in high school, a fact that helps the group identify him as Bridget’s killer.

Despite his cold-blooded lack of remorse, Citizen is dedicated to catching other killers. He reaches out to Jane at the end of the novel because he does not want Lizzie to go free, demonstrating that he understands the distinction between right and wrong even if he is unable to apply it to his own actions. He also says that he committed the murders in a desperate attempt to keep the group together—an illustration of the lengths that some may go to in an effort to avoid loneliness. He thus serves as a foil for Jane and the many other characters who struggle with isolation.

Mistress is one of the members of Jane’s group. She is retired and enjoys knitting. Like the other members of the group, Mistress has experienced loss: She is a widow still grieving her husband. The two had a close and happy marriage, and she feels lonely without him. She remains dedicated to her surviving family members and adores her two grown children and grandchild.

Because of her age and her mild-mannered personality, Mistress radiates trustworthiness and often has an easier time obtaining information from law enforcement than Goku or Citizen. Her genuine concern for victims’ rights is evident when she speaks about investigations, and the police are often willing to confide in her even when they deem the other members of the group suspect. Backstory contextualizes this approach to investigations: Mistress survived a near attack by a serial killer. As a young woman, she managed to escape from a man who attacked her in a bathroom. Later, she found out from television news coverage that he was a serial killer. This experience had a profound effect on Mistress, and it continues to shape the way that she centers the identity and experience of the victim, as well as her desire to bring them justice.

These four students are at the heart of the story in spite of the secondary role they play in the novel’s action. Madeleine, Stacie, and Larissa are the first three murder victims. They live in an off-campus party house with Harlow, whom the killer spares. Madeleine and Stacie are characterized initially through physical description: They are beautiful, blonde, and young. They thus epitomize the novel’s engagement with the politics of race, class, and gender as they intersect with the world of true crime, as victims who are white, young, and beautiful receive more attention than victims of color or victims from under-resourced backgrounds. Although Jane and her group are aware of the inherent inequality in this, they are also caught up in the media storm around Madeleine, Stacie, and Larissa’s murders. Madeleine and Stacie are also characterized by their partying. They are not particularly studious and spend much of their time drinking, either at school functions, their own home, or a local bar with a reputation for serving minors. It is for this reason that they catch the eye of their killer, Lizzie: Lizzie dislikes and then targets these women because of their behavior.

By contrast, Larissa is a serious student. She has a scholarship and hopes to make her way to middle-class status by attending medical school and becoming a doctor. Her physical description mirrors her seriousness: She is a “straight-faced, straight-haired, straight-shooting brunette” (125). She disapproves of Madeleine and Stacie, and there is a record of antipathy between them.

Harlow, the fourth roommate, is spared by the killer and finds her roommates’ bodies. She is criticized and then investigated for not immediately calling the police, but Jane later speculates that Harlow suspected Lizzie of the murders and was scared to go forward with the information. Although Harlow carries a designer handbag and appears as carefree as Madeleine and Stacie, she is also a scholarship student and is in danger of losing her funding because Madeleine and Stacie’s loud parties have interfered with her sleep and studying.

That the novel provides so much information about each of the women’s lives speaks to its interest in the complex ethics of the true-crime world: In a media landscape in which victims’ identities shrink as the public fixates on the lurid details of their deaths, this novel is a nod to the importance of treating victims with care and humanity.

Odell is one of the men whom the group wrongfully identifies as the killer. He is a criminology graduate student with ties to the victims Madeleine and Stacie. Jane finds his physical presence threatening and easily believes him capable of having killed for pleasure.

Although Odell does not turn out to be the killer, her instincts are not wholly misplaced, as he is a complex, antagonistic figure. His alibi for the night of the murders is his arrest for attempted rape, and his extreme antipathy toward women becomes a key facet of his characterization. Pretending to be graduate students themselves, Goku and Citizen befriend him. Goading Odell, they claim to loathe undergraduates, and Odell reveals that he also dislikes his students and that he has a special distaste for women: He tells Goku and Citizen that “the girls are the worst” before unleashing a misogynistic stream of insults about female students and women in general (334). It is in part because of this extreme sexism that the group believes him capable of murder.

However, Odell also allows the novel to reflect on another form of bias—ableism—as he has a history of addiction and has been in and out of psychiatric care. His mental health conditions make it easier for Goku and Citizen to extract a (false) confession of him, and Odell’s arrest and subsequent release provoke a mass protest and a media storm: One camp is appalled at his release, and the other is angry that someone with an array of mental health conditions would be stereotyped as a killer. His character illustrates the sensationalistic nature of true-crime coverage and the speed with which innocent people can be convicted in the court of public opinion.

Although murdered by Citizen before she can be charged or convicted, Lizzie is the presumed killer of the Kappa Delta women. She is the sorority house mother and a 26-year-old nursing student. Lizzie is initially characterized as bumbling and unpopular, but this is only how she appears to most of the sorority sisters. However, details such as her intuition that Jane is not who she says she is when masquerading as Veronica suggest keen social awareness. In fact, Lizzie is highly intelligent and ruthless, as well as capable of dangerous obsession. She has a history of fixating on particular women, and it is obvious to Jane that Lizzie is obsessed with Harlow. Indeed, this is what drives her to murder: She kills Harlow’s roommates because their partying interferes with Harlow’s studying and spares Harlow’s life because Harlow is the object of her obsession.

Like many of the killers in this novel, Lizzie hides in “plain sight,” aided in part by her gender. Jane and the others argue repeatedly over whether women can be killers due to the stereotype that women are not inherently violent. Although it is true that the majority of violent criminals are men, this novel serves as a reminder that women are also “capable of violence” (350).

Although he dies at the very beginning of the story, Jane’s father looms large over the entire novel. He grew up in rural Tennessee but could not wait to leave; his ticket out was joining the Navy, and it was during his time in the Navy that he met Jane’s mother. He struggled with his weight throughout his life, and his resulting heart problems led to his death.

Jane’s father is a kind and loving man who supports Jane in any way that he can. Denied the opportunity to attend college himself, he is excited when Jane begins classes at the University of Central Florida. He loves Star Trek and has an encyclopedic knowledge of the show’s many episodes. However, much about him remains a mystery. For instance, Jane finds out that he wrote Star Trek fanfiction, and when she reads it, she realizes that he was a skilled writer. She also finds out that he was sexually abused as a child and is mystified that he never mentioned the abuse or showed any sign of having been impacted by it. Even his wife does not believe the news when Jane shares it, so adept was he at hiding whatever lasting trauma it caused. His refusal to take blood-pressure medication also puzzles his wife and daughter, as it might have prevented his heart attack. Ultimately, Jane realizes that everyone is a mystery and that she will never fully know her father, making his character a key point of engagement with the multi-faceted nature of identity and a way for the author to explore the complexities of familial relationships.